Learn to confidently model commercial leases in Excel — from key terms to rent, breaks, voids, and reletting scenarios.
If you work in real estate investment, asset management, or finance, understanding how to model a commercial lease is an essential skill.
What you’ll learn
- Understand how commercial leases are structured and why they matter in real estate modelling.
- Know how to extract, structure, and model key lease data in Excel.
- Be confident applying lease terms such as rent-free, break options, and rent reviews in a financial model.
- Be confident applying lease terms such as rent-free, break options, and rent reviews in a financial modelBe confident applying lease terms such as rent-free, br.
- Build a clear, flexible cash flow and dashboard for lease performance analysis.
- Test different reletting assumptions and evaluate the impact using sensitivity tables.
Course Content
- Module 1: Getting Started –> 3 lectures • 2min.
- Module 2: Key Terms & Tools –> 2 lectures • 7min.
- Module 3: Understanding the Concept –> 3 lectures • 17min.
- Module 4.1: Introduction & Setting up –> 7 lectures • 42min.
- Module 4.2 How to Model an Existing Lease –> 9 lectures • 36min.
- Module 4.3 How to Model a Future Lease –> 6 lectures • 18min.
- Module 5: Real-World Application –> 6 lectures • 42min.
- Module 6: Test Your Skills –> 2 lectures • 1min.
Requirements
If you work in real estate investment, asset management, or finance, understanding how to model a commercial lease is an essential skill.
This course shows you exactly how to build and analyse commercial lease cash flows in Excel – clearly, logically, and with a structure you can reuse across multiple deals.
We’ll cover the full lease lifecycle, from start to expiry (and everything in between). You’ll learn how to handle rent-free periods, lease breaks, rent reviews, voids, reletting assumptions, capital incentives, and stepped rents. You’ll also calculate metrics like WAULT, physical and economic occupancy, net-to-gross ratio, and discounted cash flow.
Throughout the course, you’ll be shown not just what to build – but why it matters. You’ll be taught how each element flows through to your cash flow, your valuation, and ultimately your investment decisions.
This is a practical, real-world course, based on how leases are actually structured in the market. It’s suitable for:
– Analysts building models from scratch
– Asset managers reviewing and adapting models
– Investors and lenders who want to understand the numbers behind the leases
By the end of the course, you’ll know how to:
– Build a flexible tenancy schedule with multiple lease layers
– Model lease breaks, incentives, and future scenarios
– Analyse how different assumptions affect your cash flow and valuation
– Create a one-page dashboard to summarise key metrics and risks
– Use Excel tools like INDEX, MATCH, SUMIFS, and data tables with confidence
You’ll also complete a set of real-world tasks using investment brochures from the market – giving you the chance to practise and reinforce your skills in a low-pressure environment. There’s no grading. This is about building confidence and making you faster, sharper, and more commercially aware.
Whether you’re working on office, retail, or mixed-use assets, this course gives you the structure and understanding you need to model commercial leases accurately and efficiently.